Are you over-selling on social media?
How much of your content should actually be promotional? What other kinds of content should you be sharing on social media?
We all know that the entire point of business is to make money. That’s what makes the economy go round. But in today’s social world, the ABC (always be closing) mentality just doesn’t work, and if your brand comes off as too salesy, it can have a negative impact on your brand’s overall image.
It’s important to plan and constantly reevaluate your brand’s marketing mix. You need to balance your directly promotional content with informational updates like blog posts, curated industry content like shared articles, fun, inspirational, or uplifting visuals and stories, and questions and dialogue that are specifically conversational.
Social Media Content Mix
- Informative Content & Blog Posts — 20%
- Fun, Inspirational, & Uplifting Content — 20%
- Curated Industry Content — 20%
- Conversational Content — 20%
- Promotional Content — 20% (max)
= 100%
How much of your content should be visual?
In our opinion, on Facebook, LinkedIn, and of course on Instagram and Pinterest, 100% of your content should be visual for brands–not personal brands, but for business brands.
We can hear you already: “What??? 100%!!!”
Yep, 100%. On Twitter, this can be reduced to 35-75%, but keep in mind that all of the content that you share has the potential to be accompanied by a custom branded visual or an existing visual. When you include curated content, most articles will usually pick up a featured image to go along with the copy. If you have a WordPress website, you can use the Yoast SEO plugin to apply specific images sized for Facebook and Twitter so that there’s always an appropriate image whenever you or someone else shares your content.
Brand content that’s accompanied by a visual (image or video) is 100% more engaging and memorable than text-only for brands. NB: this is not necessarily the case for personal profiles so please make note that these guidelines are for business brands.
Examples of Visual Content
Custom branded visuals, brand photographs or videos, etc. – 60%
Visuals from curated content and external sources – 40%
Identifying Visual Opportunities
Start thinking about the types of visuals that you can include in your social
marketing campaigns:
- to accompany your own blog posts
- to accompany questions, ideas, fun, and conversational content
- your own quotes
- external on-brand quotes that include your brand name/url
- promotional visuals
- videos of all of the above
If you need help with your own social media marketing mix, either with a specific component like creating visuals or with the full-cycle writing, management, and implementation, let’s chat. We’d be happy to give you a free consultation to look at your business, evaluate your needs, and determine if we’re a good fit for one another.
